


Another Day

by ilien



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 09:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3115049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilien/pseuds/ilien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wasn't a Horseman anymore, but wasn't anything else yet, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [juniperphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperphoenix/gifts).



> Written for Juniperphoenix's fandom stocking.

It had been a while since he'd last eaten something. Hell, it had been days since he’d been strong enough to move, so if he hadn’t strategically fallen by a river, he’d have been dying from thirst rather than starvation. That would have hurt much more, not to mention happened much more often. So far, he’d died nine... ten times, and then lost count, or probably lost his ability to count – what would Kronos say to that, the great Methos the Strategist doesn’t know how to count to a dozen. 

Several deaths ago he had wished he hadn’t run so far north. A couple of deaths later, he'd wished he hadn’t left his sword. Then, when it started snowing and he began to die from cold rather than starvation (that was a pleasant change), he wished Silas had been there, because Silas was huge, and warm, and always there when they needed extra warmth. Yet, not even then did he wish he’d never betrayed Kronos. 

The snow was getting colder, it would no longer melt the next morning, and the river was soon covered with ice; Methos figured it wouldn’t be long until he woke up in spring. It had happened before, a very, very long time ago: he’d died in the ice and only woke up when the ice had begun to melt. He was looking forward to that moment: probably in spring he would find something to eat. Or not – but either way, he’d skip so many deaths and all the awakenings for the entire season. It was a good plan: solid, easy to execute, almost flawless; much better than all of those he’d had in the last—he didn’t know how long. 

Too bad for the “almost” part, because when he was no longer feeling any cold or hunger, which meant he was mere heartbeats from death again, he felt another Immortal. “That’s it,” he managed to think, “I’m not waking up this time.” It didn’t bother him as much as it probably should have.

***

He woke up slowly, painfully, hurting with every inch of his body. Coming back to life was always more painful than the death that lead to it, but recently he hated it more than ever: once his body would stop aching from the revival, it would start aching from the cold, and the hunger, and the thirst – right until he died and it started all over again. He vaguely remembered that he wasn’t supposed to wake up this time, but didn’t remember why, exactly.

Then, even before his other senses came to life, he felt another Immortal’s Quickening. Oh, right. Here’s why. After that, his senses finally caught up, and he was overwhelmed with long-forgotten sensations: he wasn’t cold, the air smelled of fire and herbs, and he wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as he had been when he died. As the revival pain settled down a little bit, he opened his eyes—

And saw a goddess. He knew, rationally, that gods didn’t exist: he had been a god, a cruel and merciless one, and that, if nothing else, was proof enough that there was no one above. Yet, there was a goddess beside him, he had no doubt of that. Her golden hair was shining in sunlight, her smile was kinder than anything he’d seen in a long, long time, and her hand on his forehead was warm and gentle. 

“Rest,” she said. “Give your body time to heal. Don’t talk just yet.”

He tried to nod, but somehow his eyes closed again and he fell into dreamless sleep.

***

Next time he woke up, it wasn’t from death. It was pleasant, waking up from sleep; he almost forgot how good that felt. He opened his eyes, slowly, and found himself in a small house: a single room with a fireplace, a bed, and a table with a bench. He wasn't sensing anyone's presence this time, and it would have made him believe that the goddess was a dream, if not for the solid fact that he was alive, warm, and very definitely no longer in the forest by the ice-covered river. 

There was food on the table; not nearly enough food for someone who'd spent months starving to death, but much more than he’d had in those past months: honey-sweetened herbal tea, broth and some fresh bread. He ate and drank everything; it was the most delicious meal of his life.

No longer hungry or thirsty, he briefly considered taking everything valuable he could find in the house and leaving before sunset, but somehow ended up curled up on the bed. It was too warm and too comfortable to seriously consider leaving.

***

Next time he woke up, he saw her again. Now that he was more himself, he certainly knew she wasn’t a deity – just a very beautiful Immortal woman who was now putting bread in the stove. Now that he could think once again, he also knew that no one ever does anything without a reason. Why would this woman pick him up, give him food, let him sleep in her house, instead of just killing him when he was helpless?

“What do you want from me?” He asked.

She looked at him and smiled. Just like that, she was a goddess again, even with a stain of flour on her left cheek. 

“Good morning,” she said instead of answering. “You’ve slept for three days, and were dead for two before that.”

“What do you want from me?” He asked again, trying not to smile back at her.

“Here’s some broth, I can see you liked it last time. Take it easy, it will hurt if you eat too much.” With that, she handed him a mug of broth, and then, as he accepted it against his better judgment, she continued, “What do you think I want?”

“If you wanted me dead, I’d be dead,” he answered, but not before taking a sip of the broth. It was good, and he was still hungry. “If you wanted me as a slave, you wouldn’t have left me alone in your house.”

She nodded. “I don’t want your head, and I don’t need a slave.”

“What do you want, then?” He finished the broth and stood up to put the mug on the table. He noticed now that he was wearing a clean linen tunic – nothing like the dirty torn rugs he remembered owning. 

She shook her head. “I promise you I don’t want anything you are not willing to give. You are free to leave any time, but I’d suggest you wait at least until the bread is baked.”

“People never do things without a reason,” he stated, accepting another mug from her. This one was filled with tea that had more honey in it than actual tea.

“No, they don’t,” she agreed, and proceeded sweeping the flour from the table, as if there was nothing more to say.

He sipped the tea, and then asked, “Where’s your man?”

“Dead,” she said. “Most of them were mortal.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just shrugged and concentrated on the tea. There was chamomile in it, and some mint, and tutsan. And a lot of honey. It was delicious.

***

“My name is Rebecca,” she said, after she’d finished tidying up and he’d drunk at least three mugs of the honey tea. “How do I call you?”

“You can call me Master,” he remembered himself saying, too many times. He vowed he’d never say that again.

“Methos,” he said after a pause. “Call me Methos.” 

He hoped she wouldn’t recognize the name. Or probably hoped she would, in which case he expected fear, or anger, or disgust. Instead, she just said, “I’ve heard about you. Nice to meet you, Methos.”

Nice. There was nothing nice about meeting him.

“Everything you heard about me is true,” he confessed. “I am all those things.”

“But that’s not all you are, is it?” She asked, looking him right in his eye like she could see something he didn’t even know was there. 

He didn’t reply.

“See that chest by the door? There's a sword in it, Methos,” she said at last. “You may take it and leave, or fight me and leave, or take anything else you want, and leave. Or you can stay here for dinner or for the winter; this house is big enough for two.”

“Fight me,” she said, not “kill me”. She thought she could fight him. She thought she could win. Methos couldn't recall the last time anyone but his brothers seriously believed he could beat him. He stood up, walked to the chest in the corner, and opened it to discover a fine one-handed sword: heavy, balanced, as he found once he’d picked the sword up and weighted it in his hand; razor-sharp, and well taken care of. He turned around to face her.

She was still standing by the stove, but she’d put the frying pan down, and was holding a sword of her own. She didn’t look scared, or worried – only focused, and maybe a little angry. Good. 

He put the sword back in the chest and didn’t get to see where she hid her own. 

“I’ll stay,” he decided. “Until the spring.” He had no idea why he thought it was a good idea, but between going north alone, and leaving his sword as payment in an inn, it wasn’t the worst decision he’d made lately.

“Good,” she said, looking satisfied, and then continued, “The bread is almost done. There’s soup in the stove.”

***

The morning after that, she asked him to chop the wood. It didn’t occur to him she’d need his help; he managed to forget that everyday routine took effort. The Horsemen used to have slaves for that, or would simply leave the pillaged settlement once it ran out or resources. On rare occasions they had to chop their own wood, Silas would be the man for the job, and now Methos barely remembered how to do that. He managed, however, and Rebecca thanked him, and it was the first “thank you” he got in a very long time. 

The first time she asked him to cook dinner when she had to go to the village, he burned the stew and put the bread in the stove too late; the bread took too long to bake and came out dry, almost stale. Rebecca didn’t comment on the stew, but explained what went wrong with the bread. Next time, the bread turned out fine.

One day, she asked him what he was going to do once the spring came. 

“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want,” she said. “But is that what you really want?”

That was how he found out he didn’t know the answer, so he didn’t say anything. 

***

The first time she took him to the village with her, he came up with six ways to conquer and pillage it. “I’d start with that guy over there,” he explained to her, “I bet he screams loud enough to scare everyone. Then, when they’re nice and terrified, I’d let Silas kill a couple of them, while Kronos and Caspian keep the others from escaping. And then, when they’re petrified, I’d—“

“You really enjoyed it, didn’t you?” She asked, and it sounded like they were talking about gardening, or pottery.

“Oh, yes,” he agreed. There was no doubt about that.

“Do you miss it?”

That question was harder. He missed the rush, he missed how easy it had been - much easier than chopping wood and baking bread. He missed his brothers: he still kept turning around to share a joke, only to see no one was there.

He didn’t miss killing, didn’t miss the screams and the smell of burning flesh. He remembered enjoying the smell, and the screams, and the killing. He had no idea when or why that had changed, what had made him stop loving the life he’d had. Part of him wished he hadn’t. 

He shrugged. “I do and I don’t,” he told her, but didn’t elaborate.

“Is that what you want? To kill again?” She looked genuinely curious, not scared or even angry. Back in the day, he’d take it as a challenge, and spend days trying to make her scared. Now, he just shook his head silently. 

***

It didn’t occur to him to ask what she did for a living – he actually forgot there had to be something she’d have to trade for milk and clothing. Turned out, she traded life. She was a healer, and people came to her when they were hurting. Her attic was full of jars and tiny linen bags filled with dried herbs, mushrooms, and berries. She knew the herb for headache, and one for bad stomach. He’d forgotten that about mortals: of course he knew how fragile they were, he’d used their fragility too many times; he just didn’t really remember how they could hurt even when no one was trying to hurt them; or how a herb, or a tiniest pinch of white powder could make them better. In the first month he spent with her he learned more about mortals than he did in millennium before that. 

Cranberry juice with honey is good for fever, pine needle tea helps fight scurvy, and dried plantain heals wounds; if there’s no cranberry, tea of plantain and pine needles would help the fever, too, but not the other way around. He found that calculating the right strategy of healing mortals can be just as enjoyable as killing them, and that discovery shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was, because of course he was a healer at some point in his life, before Kronos. 

***

“It’s not enough,” Rebecca said one day over dinner. “It’s amazing that you had the power, the courage to stop what you were doing.”

Methos shook his head. He never saw it as an act of courage. It was cowardice; he’d run away from the pain it was causing him, and from the guilt that was too much to bear. It didn’t take power, it took stabbing his brother in the back.

“I know you don’t see it that way yet.” She gave him one of her kind smiles, like a mother’s smile to a child. “But it was brave, and it was an act of a strong man: to see that you don’t want to do that anymore, and to stop when you did.”

Of course he’d told her everything: about Kronos, and Silas, and Caspian, and even about Cassandra. Rebecca was a good listener: quiet, kind and attentive; she didn’t judge, just said “I’m sorry”, even though Methos wasn’t sure what she was sorry for. Now it was probably his turn to listen.

“You were brave and strong, but that's not enough, Methos. It’s not enough to know what you don’t want to be; it’s not enough to know what you were. You need to know what you want to be; to picture what you’re going to be, as vividly as you can. You can’t build anything on void.”

He'd known that. He used to know that, a long time ago. He used to have plans, and hopes, and expectations. Now he didn’t really remember what it was like.

“What is it you want to live for?” She asked, and he had no answer to that. It was okay, too. It was ten days past the Winter Solstice. There were months of winter ahead; he’d had the time to decide. For now, he figured he’d just live for her. It was as good a reason as any.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this story isn't betaed. I was in a bit of a rush to finish it by the deadline. Please feel free to point out the mistakes or volunteer to beta it.
> 
> Again, sorry.


End file.
